One encounters Asheville today as a
modern city that is rapidly growing and expanding out into the
surrounding Buncombe County. Asheville today does not look at all
like the Asheville from before the turn of the century. Regrettably,
much of the best of that time has vanished, including the elegant
Queen Anne style Battery Park Hotel and the very hilltop on which it
stood and dominated the city landscape. Only scattered buildings
remain from that period.

Much of the city landscape remains, however, from the early days of
the century through to the present day, especially downtown
Asheville, which retains a strong presence from the early third of
this century. Asheville’s slow recovery from the Great Depression
did not allow it to wholesale demolish these early buildings as did
so many American cities, and because of that, they have been
preserved intact to this day. Within the central downtown district
for example, one can find excellent examples of Neo-Gothic,
Neo-Georgian,
Commercial Classical, Art Deco, Romanesque Revival and other style
structures that make up the most extensive collection of early
twentieth century architecture in the state. They remain an open-air
museum, reminders of the optimism and unbounded investment that
characterized Asheville in its boom period. Asheville is the only
city of its magnitude in which such a urban landscape survives
almost intact.

Asheville, through the efforts of local preservation and historic
resources organizations, as well as the North Carolina Department of
Cultural Resources, has been divided into a number of historic
districts. These districts form the basis for this chapter and also
the framework for a series of self-guided tours using this guidebook
as a reference,
should you wish to experience some of the wonderful and diverse
architectural heritage of Asheville during your visit. Another way
to see the historic districts is to take a tour on one of two
replica trolleys. See
Asheville Tours for more
information.